Stuff To Know To Get You Going In 2018
We've collected a bushel of newsworthy headlines about the biz and the participants as a catch-up for all you straddlers that have been off-the-grid over the holidays and are feeling the need for a primer course before hitting the ground running with a coffee mug in hand.
By David Farrell
We've collected a bushel of newsworthy headlines about the biz and the participants as a catch-up for all you straddlers that have been off-the-grid over the holidays and are feeling the need for a primer course before hitting the ground running with a coffee mug in hand.
Beyoncé, Eminem, and the Weeknd will headline Coachella 2018: Beyoncé is an expected headliner, as her pregnancy with twins last year prompted her to postpone her 2017 performance to this year. The Weeknd performed at Coachella in 2012, but long before his career took off. Grammy-winning Eminem will debut at the festival in April.
Snapchat threw a $4M company New Year's Eve party, complete with a performance from Drake. The company lost $444M in its last quarter, but that didn’t stop the social media platform from stepping out for its clan at the Microsoft Theater in LA.
Taylor Swift’s tour is a bust? Paul Resnikoff bellows in Digital Music News today: ‘Thousands of unsold seats across dozens of venues. No sellouts. Pissed-off fans and obscenely high-ticket prices. Welcome to Taylor Swift’s Reputation Tour.’
2018 Predictions: Online Audio in the New Year: RAIN News gathers a coven of industry leaders, Alan Cross included, to read the tea leaves and predict the year ahead.
Analyst predicts Amazon to acquire Target later this year. Unlike earlier acquisition Whole Foods, Target isn’t strictly speaking a food retailer. Yes, it sells food, but it plays a great emphasis on things like clothing, housewares, and electronics. This would be an excellent place for Amazon to sell its own-brand goods.
Germany has begun enforcing a new law that mandates that social media firms must swiftly remove hate speech, hoax stories and illegal content from their platforms or face a fine.
Reuters reports that Spotify has been sued by Wixen Music Publishing Inc for allegedly using thousands of songs, including those of Tom Petty, Neil Young and the Doors, without a license and compensation to the music publisher.
Some of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley are regulars at exclusive, drug-fueled, sex-laced parties—gatherings they describe not as scandalous, or even secret, but as a bold, unconventional lifestyle choice. While the guys get laid, the women get screwed. In an adaptation from her new book, Brotopia, Emily Chang exposes the tired and toxic dynamic at play in a Vanity Fair exclusive.
Building the Next Bieber: Bryson Morris is a trap-rapping 14-year-old with one semi-viral hit. His team thinks he’ll be the next teen pop superstar. Are they delusional, or about to change the game? Sam Rosen at The Ringer has the story on this pubescent Texas teen.
Ticketmaster wants to change the way fans get their mitts on tickets. It’s part of a grand plan to beat the bots, but it comes with a price, and one needs to be recognized as a ‘verified fan’.
AI and data are music to recording industry's ears for recouping song royalties. SOCAN and Re:Sound spent 2017 building world-leading partnerships that will help them better scan audio and video content online and on the radio, ensuring copyright holders are making as much money as possible while keeping an eye out for future stars, too. Josh O’Kane at the Globe and Mail has the story.
Facebook and Universal Music struck a multi-year licensing deal just before the holiday to let users across all Facebook media properties use recorded music and publishing catalogues for video across Facebook. Just days before, YouTube and Universal Music Group announced a "global, multi-year agreement," and Bloomberg reported that the tech giant also struck a deal with Sony Music giving YouTube music licenses from three of the most prominent record labels: Universal, Sony and Warner.
Following months of rumours, Ron Perry has officially been named Chairman & CEO of Columbia Records based in New York. He reports to Sony Music CEO, and former Columbia boss, Rob Stringer.
It’s 2018, and the music business is better than ever: Music is being created and consumed at a higher rate than ever before. More artists are on the road touring, which means fans are buying tickets and merchandise. Live music ticket sales revenue will grow from $7.2 billion U.S. dollars in 2015 to $9.1 billion in 2021; even vinyl sales are way up (last year, sales in the U.S. grew 25.9 percent to 7.2 million units). AdAge trumpets the good news.
The charts made no goddam sense in 2017: In both the US and UK they suffered identity crises, tweaking their rules in a bid to keep up with streaming, at least this is the conclusion drawn from interviews by Tshepo Mokoena in Vice’s online music portal, Noisey.
Alexa, streaming, digital concert halls: what will 2018 hold? Gramophone's Editor looks at trends which may shape the coming year for music.
Moviegoing falls 5.8% in Canada and the US in 2017. Rising ticket prices, up 3.2% last year on average, kept revenue above $11 billion, but that’s still down from the 2016 record, The Washington Post reports.
Forbes contributor Ogden Payne features Kaytranada's manager William Robillard-Cole’s artist approach to business. “Music first. Then business,” reads Zane Lowe’s Twitter bio. It’s a sentiment that artist manager and eOne’s VP of A&R William Robillard-Cole profoundly appreciates, Payne observes. Born in Nova Scotia, Cole started his WRC Management company with just C$2,000 - about US$1,500 - and has raked in over $2.3 million in revenue since its 2013 inception.
